The 4th Industrial Revolution — 4RI
Chris Heron FRSA
Founder, CEO and Catalyst at Vivagogy
Introduction
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is different to previous revolutions because of the unprecedented rate of change and increased complexity of related issues.
Overview
Perhaps, the most significant difference to all preceding revolutions is the speed and impact of its progression. According to McKinsey (2018)[1] “compared with the First Industrial Revolution, we estimate that this change is happening 10 times faster and at 300 times the scale, or roughly 3,000 times the impact”.
Since we moved into caves and discovered fire we have been on an evolutionary path which has been getting exponentially faster, with each big innovation acting with others to produce an accelerated effect.
We must now find new ways of dealing with these complex and interconnected changes holistically.
The speed of change and our inability to adapt by learning new skills, is the biggest threat to the survival of our species. It is the acquisition of new competencies which will determine whether, and how we survive.
Most current commentary about the 4th Industrial Revolution demonstrates little understanding that existing systems cannot cope and just adapting with the latest technology is not a viable solution.
Rigid systems design will not work.
Systems need to be fluid to change at the necessary speed.
This is true of all systems political, economic, social and all of their subsets of the macro systems of which formal learning or education is a case in point.
The Skills Gap — misnomer or reality
We[ch1] know many jobs will be automated in the future which will produce new jobs but today we still hear employers saying that there aren’t enough skilled workers to meet employers’ needs globally. This applies to new workers and the existing workforce.
This issue has been widely referred to as the ‘Skills Gap’ and yet it is complex than one problem — it is multi-faceted:
Formal Education is not keeping up with the rate of change of required skills
There is significant evidence that the competencies learners acquire in formal education are not relevant to the current workplace.
Competencies for current and future employment are not being taught in formal learning. Added to that is the continuous shift in the skills landscape at an ever-increasing speed which makes it impossible for education to meet this ever-changing need. We are simply not able to train new and existing employees fast enough.
“The qualification system is at the root of the problem. Vocational qualifications are set by boards and must follow Ofqual guidelines. Updating them is a laborious process that can take up to two years. The system is simply too slow to keep up with the rapid changes in industry.”[2]
Formal education is therefore becoming less relevant to commerce and students alike
“Data released this week shows that public universities and colleges are struggling to find takers for their courses, raising questions on their viability and relevance to the job market. ”[3]
Degrees and certification do not guarantee jobs.
Even when students are gaining degrees and certificates there is no guarantee that they will provide an avenue into the workforce.
There are also more pathways to a career that do not require formal qualifications as more and more employers abandon minimal academic entry standards.
“There are about 30 million “good jobs” that do not require an undergraduate degree and will pay an average of $55,000, and minimum of $35,000.” [4]’
Policy
All countries, face the challenge of identifying new ways of continually evolving the skills of the new and existing workforce at a time of great change.
The common themes are:
- up-skilling the adult workforce;
- improving careers advice (for example, all age career services);
- simplifying and responsive further education and Vocational Education and Training (VET);
- better use of skills in the workplace;
- increased demand for skills through increased employer ambition; and
- targeted support for skill-development in SMEs.
These themes are not dealt with very well with current manual systems and our argument is that the whole system needs an overhaul, a new strategy, new assessment and a new business model.
There are hundreds of organisations involved in this process and millions of people. None of this activity is coordinated or effectively tracked and monitored for quality and the wastage must be vast. We propose a holistic, online, system that links all stakeholders and provides unique insights and measurements not possible before.
Introduction
Vivagogy is a company incorporated in the UK and in Europe. Our global team is dedicated to producing a better, more equitable system for learning and training by measuring all forms of learning in competency output. As well as providing an innovative recruitment and training program for companies, our aim is to create free access to learning and assessment for as many learners as possible.
Our business model is to produce great added value and cost savings for organisations in recruitment and talent management and charge for access to tools and data which will support making learning free.
We are a team of teachers, assessors, educators, software designers and skills experts who have experience at all levels in the UK and globally. We are starting the design of a revolutionary software and talent management system which links all the processes in learning and competency acquisition in a lifelong learning portfolio direct with employers to solve the Skills Gap.
Examples and details are given on the Team page of our site.
I am the CEO and Founder of the company and jointly designed the learning and assessment system and business model. I am a teacher and have wide management and business experience particularly in the digital application of learning and assessment.
There is a recognised gap between the skills being taught through formal education and those required by companies. Aspects of this issue include:
Formal Education is not keeping up with the rate of change of required skills;
- Degrees and certification do not guarantee jobs;
- The ageing workforce (and later retirement age) requires older employees to be retrained to keep them relevant and valuable in the workplace); and
- Companies are creating their own training opportunities for employees rather than looking to formal education institutions.
- Regardless of the causes and impact of the skills gap the key solution is to re-envision learning and embrace the imperative for developing a culture of lifelong learning (both within formal education and the workplace) where the learning takes many forms (including formal, informal, incidental and workplace-based).
- Leerpark provides a case study demonstrating a model that is proving to solve many of the identified problems of the skills gap.
- Our solution to the problem takes the defining principles and philosophy of the Leerpark model and, using technological innovation, creating a scalable and iterative online solution called ediGogy.
The Age Bubble
The continually ageing workforce and retirement age being pushed back leaves millions of people with the need to continue working for longer periods for which they need to continually update their skills to remain useful.
Companies are creating their own training opportunities for employees rather than looking to formal education institutions
Companies are increasingly seeing the need to create their own training opportunities to develop the necessary skills in new workers as well as evolve the changing skills requirements brought on due to technological and other innovations. Even these system, however, are being overloaded by demand.
With trust in the vocational system steadily eroding, it’s no surprise that major employers such as JCB, EDF energy and Rolls-Royce have set up their own training academies.
A mismatch between jobs and skills creating a ‘flood or drought’ phenomenon
Already half the global workforce of 850 million is being underutilised and there is no system in place to rectify this problem.
“The UK labour market also exhibits high levels of qualification mismatch and apparent under-utilisation of skills. About 30% of UK workers believe they are overqualified for their jobs, the second highest proportion after Japan according to the OECD report.”[5]
“Skill shortages and mismatches have negative implications for the economy and the labour market. They can result in increased labour costs, lost production due to unfilled vacancies, slower adoption of new technologies, and the implicit and explicit costs of higher unemployment rates.” [6]
The cost and damage of the Skills Gap problems are enormous and increasing
“90 per cent of employers have struggled to recruit workers with the right skills in the last 12 months. The skills gap is costing UK businesses more than £2 billion a year in higher salaries, recruitment costs and temporary staffing.” [7]
The impact of the “Skills Gap” on a company’s productivity
Even inside commerce, many have admitted to not having the right competencies.
“Despite this positivity from organisations, seven in 10 (69%) businesses believe they will struggle to hire people with the right skills in the next 12 months, implying certain skills may take longer to build. With three in five (58%) employers saying the skills shortage has damaged their organisation, it is important that they ensure their training programmes provide their staff with the skills they require, in a way that allows them to put their new knowledge into practice in the workplace as soon as possible.” [8]
The skills that are missing — beyond ‘soft skills’
There is overwhelming unity around the kinds of skills most needed, but they aren’t being taught anywhere. They are competencies in activities supporting collaboration, communication, teamwork, diversity, persistence, creative thinking and data management which need to be learned not taught.
“The kinds of activities least likely to be automated happen to be the same activities facing talent deficits! This could be seen as great news if we are prepared to close this gap.”[9]
“This is a significant report that highlights concern around the development of soft skills in pupils and new entrants to the world of work. It’s likely that the focus on outcomes from terminal examinations has pushed the development of soft skills to the margins of many pupils’ educational experience. The report calls for schools to do more to develop young people’s confidence and communication skills; the findings suggest the vast majority of teachers would support such moves”. [10]
“Demand for higher cognitive skills such as creativity, critical thinking and decision making, and complex information processing will grow through 2030, at cumulative double-digit rates”. [11]
The need for a culture within education and businesses for lifelong learning
A culture of lifelong learning is needed within the workforce and organisations — because of change we all need to learn all the time.
“A large portion of the companies we surveyed see a significant need for their workforce to upgrade their skills and continue to learn and adapt throughout their working lives. In fact, establishing a culture of lifelong learning was ranked by companies across most sectors as the change most needed for developing the workforce of the future”. [12]
“A survey of more than 3,000 business leaders in seven countries highlights a new emphasis on continuous learning for workers and a shift to more cross-functional and team-based work. As tasks change, jobs will need to be redefined and companies say they will need to become more agile.”[13]
What are the key components of a new type of learning system for the 21c?
Before we can develop solutions, we must recognise some of the key issues.
- Existing systems will not work and cannot be adapted because they are not built to work at these speeds — new systems are needed.
- “To harness the new technologies to their full effect, firms will need to rethink and retool their corporate structure and their approaches to work. That means redesigned business processes and a new focus on the talent they have — and the talent they need.”[14]
- New systems have to be built on transparent 21c social principles and be cost effective.
“A number of recent studies on the future of education share the overarching vision of a more personalised, collaborative and informal education, that is shaped by and incorporates contemporary technologies, in order to provide the skills, habits and values of innovation for the learners. This in turn, will only be possible by developing the appropriate learning content, assessment methods and delivery systems, which need to be combined with corresponding pedagogies, flexible curricula, validation mechanisms for non-formal learning. In order to be successful, a reform of such scale must take place in close collaboration with societal partners other than the educational institutions and requires a new role for the teacher and parent.”[15]
- New systems will need to predict trends to be ahead of the demand curve. We will need to predict demand for skills we do not yet know and build suitable learning mechanisms for them.
- We will have to dynamically balance the supply and demand of the labour market and provide learning solutions for each person at no cost or produce a revenue to cover the costs.
In Summary
Our systems will improve the above successful model by:
- automating assessment of all types of learning, formal, informal and incidental;
- creating and curating appropriate content;
- managing individual learning paths;
- managing the flow of information between the stakeholders, students, teachers, expert industry coaches, companies, education management, assessment bodies and government education organisations;
- reducing administration costs;
- disseminating information more efficiently and effectively;
- integrating all processes;
- producing revenue from talent management and recruitment;
- creating links globally and locally;
- integrating competency paths into schools;
- creating a continuous competency profile for lifelong learning;
- developing a marketing tool to involve and recruit companies;
“Using e-learning platforms to complement traditional classroom training is an effective way to build not just technical skills, but also train workers on “soft” skills such as communication and collaboration needed to succeed in the corporate world.” [1]
“Organisations need an agile workforce that can embrace change and meet new challenges. The cost of the skills gap (£2.2 billion) to the UK economy shows it must become a business and government priority to build the skills and capabilities of each individual through investing in talent at all levels.” Steve Hill, External Engagement Director at The Open University.” [2]
If we are to change the chronic problems in vocational education, brave decisions need to be taken. Funding should be aligned with regional economic priorities. Local enterprise partnerships could influence funding allocation, setting out a local skills strategy in consultation with employers and educators.[3]
Conclusion
Existing systems are failing, and few innovations have succeeded in the face of budget restraints.
We offer a proven case study as a model, a completely new system and revenue generation model based on that case study.
We have a team of experts who can deliver the model. We believe we have a deep and informed understanding of the whole problem and have a viable solution
[1] Essick (2014) Closing the technology Skills Gap” Can E-Learning Save the Day? [accessed 1 June, 2018] https://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1450825
[2] The Open University (2017) The £2.2 Billion cost of the skills gap. [accessed 7 June 2018] https://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=31527
[3] Medhat, S. (2014) Colleges must stop delivering irrelevant courses with poor career advice. [accessed 1 June,2018]https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/28/college-courses-careers-advice-youth-unemployment
[1] McKinsey Institute (2018) The four global forces breaking all the trends [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-four-global-forces-breaking-all-the-trends
[2] Medhat, S. (2014) Colleges must stop delivering irrelevant courses with poor career advice. [accessed 1 June, 2018] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/28/college-courses-careers-advice-youth-unemployment
[3] Nyamai, F (2018) Course choices to blame for skills gap [accessed 1 June, 2018] 2018 https://www.nation.co.ke/news/education/Course-choices-to-blame-for-skills-gap/2643604-4388666-12u0aeh/index.html
[4] Ward, M. (2017) 10 states with the highest increase in well-paid jobs that don’t require a college degree [accessed 2 June 2018]
[5] Evenstad, L. (2017) Government digital strategy promises focus on skills and industry partnerships. [accessed 3 June, 2019] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450414013/Government-digital-strategy-promises-focus-on-skills-and-industry-partnerships
[6] Woessmann, L. The economic case for education, European Expert Network on Economics of Education, report 20, December 2014. in McKinsey (2018) The four global forces breaking al the trends [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-four-global-forces-breaking-all-the-trends
[7] The Open University (2017) The £2.2 Billion cost of the skills gap. [accessed 7 June 2018] https://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=31527
[8] The Open University (2017) The £2.2 Billion cost of the skills gap. [accessed 7 June 2018] https://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=31527
[9] Grob-Zakhary, R, & Hjarrand, J. (2017) To close the skills gap, start with the learning gap. [accessed 8 June, 2018] https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/to-close-the-skills-gap-start-with-the-learning-gap/
[10] Kings College London. (2017) Soft skills pushed ‘to the margins’ of education. [accesses 5 June, 2018] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/newsrecords/Soft-skills-being-pushed-to-the-margins-of-education.aspx
[11] McKinsey Institute (2018) Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-organizations-and-work/skill-shift-automation-and-the-future-of-the-workforce
[12] McKinsey Institute (2018) Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-organizations-and-work/skill-shift-automation-and-the-future-of-the-workforce
[13] McKinsey Institute (2018) Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-organizations-and-work/skill-shift-automation-and-the-future-of-the-workforce
[14] McKinsey Institute (2018) Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. [accessed I June 2018] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-organizations-and-work/skill-shift-automation-and-the-future-of-the-workforce
[15] Papadakis, G. (2013) Fostering Innovative Capacity: How can cultural institutions that merge media, contemporary art and technology, cultivate creativity and the skills, competences and dispositions necessary for innovation in young learners. (Master Thesis) pg49
